


The Only One Who Didn't Run

by skyline



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 13:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5668237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyline/pseuds/skyline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Then, because Barry is nothing if not reckless, nothing if not brave, he kisses him. He kisses his mentor, his friend – but no, that’s wrong. When their mouths collide, sloppy-wet-messy, it still makes Barry moan, and oh, fuck.</p><p>Harrison Wells is not a friend anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Only One Who Didn't Run

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [The Only One Who Didn't Run 踏步不前](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8473888) by [jls20011425](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jls20011425/pseuds/jls20011425)



_Ready._

He’s one of Barry’s first idols, his pedestal higher than high. The kid’s got a google alert set for Harrison Wells’ name, and every time it pings admiration sparks, heady and overwhelming in Barry’s head. He’s going to be just like him, one day, forging new paths in the universe, making a name for himself in history.

That’s the thing that gets him through school, when being a nerd isn’t quite cool yet, when no one but Iris even tries to understand him. He’s going to grow up to be just like Dr. Wells, a great man.

Someone his father can be proud of.

Run, don’t walk, Barry urges himself, staying up later and later to study, subsisting on a steady diet of caffeine and day-old chips. He’s not the smartest kid at his college, where every single student wants to make their mark, but he’s definitely top tier. He gets hired right out of undergrad, and if that has anything to do with Joe, well, Barry doesn’t balk at the favor.

He’s stumbling over his own feet in his hurry to learn, forensic science by day, quantum theory by night. Grad school might be an idea he’s toying with, once he saves up enough – no need to burden Joe anymore – and then, well, the sky is the limit.

But the future’s never what anyone expects; bright light and a loud noise and an electric shock, right at the heart of him. That’s all it takes to change everything.

* * *

 

_Set._

Dr. Wells is a friend, a mentor, someone Barry looks to when his faith is flagging. He’s quick with praise, and anger too, and nothing at all like Barry expected.

For one, he looks at Barry like…like he’s not the lost little kid whose dad murdered his mother in cold blood. Dr. Wells watches him like maybe Barry will be a great man. And in return, Barry feels almost desperate to please him, hero-worship all tangled up with gratefulness, that he’s there, that the team is there, that Barry doesn’t have to figure any of this out alone.

Great men are never great all on their lonesome.

So Barry tries to live up to their expectations. He grits his teeth and tries to make Dr. Wells and the others proud.

There’s setbacks, sure. Barry ends up flat on his face more often than he’ll ever admit to. He runs and he runs, and even if it feels like he’s getting nowhere at all, the power that surges in him is a gift. Dr. Wells, in particular, makes sure he sees it that way.

He’s more invested in Barry than anyone has ever been before. He cheers every time that Barry succeeds and Barry’s disappointments are felt, as strongly as if they are Dr. Wells’ own.

It’s the strangest feeling; the only other people who have ever treated Barry like such precious cargo are dead, in prison, or have rejected him completely.

Which isn’t Iris’s fault, at all, but Dr. Wells’ affection stands out in glaring contrast. He has never turned Barry away. In answer, somewhere in between all the noise and heroics, Barry tries to spend time trying to learn Dr. Wells’ moods, his intricacies, too. It’s one more part of being on a team.

What he learns is:

Harrison Wells is a warm guy, sometimes, equipped with encouragement and empathy when Barry’s having a rough time of it.

Others, he’s cold as ice, pushing too hard for Barry to be…something. He never can quite figure out what.

There’s a lot of things Barry’s having trouble figuring out these days.

Like why his heart kicks up a fuss whenever he approaches S.T.A.R. labs, or why he makes up excuses to spend more and more of his time there. He likes Cisco, and Caitlin is great company, but Harrison Wells…He’s something Barry needs, constant reinforcement and those calm, bright eyes.

Dr. Wells is his mystery, his unchanging enigma. A hero who is larger than life.

Things get complicated, because that’s how entropy works. Their perfect little team can’t last forever. Barry tries not to let his doubts overwhelm him, but they do, of course they do. He’s only human (meta, but still).

And when it gets to be so much that he can’t stand it, Barry confronts the man himself, in one starkly lit corner of the lab, Caitlin and Cisco right in the other room.

His voice rises.

Dr. Wells’ doesn’t. He’s still looking at Barry the way he doesn’t look at anyone else, all that detached reserve slipping into something bordering on urgency.

Then, because Barry is nothing if not reckless, nothing if not brave, he kisses him. He kisses his mentor, his friend – but no, that’s wrong. When their mouths collide, sloppy-wet-messy, it still makes Barry moan, and oh, _fuck_.

Harrison Wells is not a friend anymore.

* * *

 

_Go._

Betrayal tastes like rust on his tongue, like blood, sweet and tangy and choking him out.

Harrison is an enemy, _the_ enemy, the only one who counts. He’s been orchestrating Barry’s life since Barry was too young to do a damn thing about it, and all the while Barry sat dreaming –

(Hot lips, tongue, the way they slid against each other under the sheets, hands branding hips, and Barry didn’t even notice how _fast_ everything was going when his fingers twined in the thickness of Harrison’s hair.)

-envisioning a future where the two of them, together, revolutionized science, as an idea, as an industry, as a way of helping the world fulfill it’s potential, and-

(He should have known. He should have _known_ , because it was never like that with anyone else, it never felt like running, the lightning wrapping around them, remaking them as part of a greater whole, the crackle, hiss, and pop of it in their veins. No one but Harrison made Barry burn so hot.)

-and he was an _idiot_ , is what he was.

He’s Barry Allen, and he believes that people are more decent than bad.

He believes that if you try hard enough, you’ll make a difference.

He believes that good conquers all.

Which makes him Barry Allen, the guy who is so damn easy to take advantage of. It makes him gullible, and weak, and even if he heals stronger after this, he will also never be the same.

Barry thinks of quiet nights, held breaths and stars pricking bright through the chilly blanket of a winter evening, just visible through the skylight in Harrison’s bedroom. He thinks of the way that this man who has been everything to him – idol-hero, mentor, father-figure, friend and colleague and anchor to anything that matters – met his eyes, brushing their lips together.

He had said, “You’re special, Barry Allen. I don’t know who I’d be if you didn’t exist.”

Harrison doesn’t exist, now. There’s only the Reverse-Flash, the antithesis of everything that Barry has ever tried to be. The great man was never really there.

It’s up to Barry to be what he couldn’t.

If he still sees the two of them imprinted on the back of his eyelids, Harrison’s mouth on the curve of his hip, so pretty, saying, “You’re special, Barry Allen,” then no one will ever need to know.

 


End file.
